DCHP-1 Online

pedlar Slang, Derog., Hist.

• 1a n. Fur Trade in the usage of the men of the Hudson's Bay Company: a. a coureur de bois, especially one who competed for trade in Rupert's Land, thus being considered an interloper.

  See also: coureur de bois (def. 1)  French pedlar  master pedlar  Rupert's Land  

  • c1752  (1852)  Nor is it in the power of man to prevent it growing worse and worse, without we could fall on a way to send our people amongst the Indians, to live and hunt, and marry and mix, and encounter and drive those pedlars back into their own lakes.
  • 1764  (1954)  . . . in 1764 the Hudson's Bay Company factor at Severn House reported "several murders committed by the Indians on the pedlars up country". . . .
  • 1908  To stand on the rights of monopoly conferred by an ancient charter while "interlopers and pedlars," as the Company called them--ran away with the profits of that monopoly, was like standing on your dignity with a thief while he picked your pockets.
  • 1947  The "Pedlars" and the Nor'Westers quickly spread into the Rocky regions of the Shield, into the prairies and into the woodlands beyond.
  • 1961  Company men referred to the Montreal traders as the "Pedlars." The latter, first trading individually or in small groups, joined forces in 1776 as the North West Company

• 1b n. after 1776, a member of the North West Company.

  See also: North West Company  Northwest pedlar  

  • 1777  (1954)  To me it appears a matter of much consequence to our Welfare as it may happen & Time may prove us only to be fighting about a few Home Guards or Shore Indians, rather confounding the Company's Interest more than we annoy the Inland Pedlars.
  • 1784  (1954)  They acknowledged they had been with the Pedlars not knowing any body was here 'till the Spring, indeed their Cloathing and Powder plainly showed that (the latter a much better kind than our's is).
  • 1921  But the pedlars were keen business men and by carrying their goods right to the Indians they soon greatly diminished the number of aborigines who made the long journey to the Bay to trade.
  • 1957  Far away yonder Jim Dugald was worrying his ass off about the pedlars.
  • 1963  He . . . gave a further display of immaturity by openly espousing the cause of the pedlars from Montreal

• 2 n. Fur Trade an American trader.

  • 1860  (1956)  The American pedlars . . . could afford us no assistance. . . .

• 3 n. Nfld See quote.

  • 1964  The "peddler"--not a man with a pack on his back, but a trading schooner from St. Johns, the American Mainland, or even England--became in the 18th century, a competitive nuisance to the regular supplying merchant in Newfoundland harbours. . . .